Navigating caves

As if he had been reading my mind, Chgowiz posted about describing caves this Friday. I've been thinking of that subject since I once again started to look closer at dungeons as environments for adventure. Just like city maps, which I have posted about before, I find cave maps hard to use.

One of the things dungeons do, as compared to the wilderness or city, is to contain the adventure and funnel the delvers along a path. There might be forks in that path and total freedom in moving about, but nobody will go off on a tangent you as DM is totally caught out by. Using that picture, a dungeon can be considered a flowchart of the possibilities in that dungeon delve. So, what difference does it make if the dungeon is of carved stone, roughly hewn rock or blue cheese?

I remember when I first read the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide for AD&D1, how the underworld suddenly became much dirtier, wetter and muddier than it was in my mind's eye up until then. While it might be realistic, it's not always desirable. Now a few days after reading what Chgowiz wrote about how he found it hard to describe caves, I wonder what they bring to the table that classic 10' corridors don't. Since I have had a hard time with those irregularly shaped locations myself I think that maybe all that muck might be a reason to use them after all.

The reason I find caves hard to use, is that if you describe a irregularly shaped room it is very hard to give a mental picture that even remotely resembles how that cave looks on the map. Like Chgowiz summarized it, there are a few ways to do it, and the only one that gives a good enough picture to make the nooks and crannies mean anything are when you draw for the players. If there is a set of stone blocks that are significant because there's a secret tunnel behind a wall of mud, you either describe them clearly and give a big honking hint they are significant, or you draw it out. Personally I've drawn the map on the battlemap, but it takes time and is really work that should be done by the players.

Can you tell my mind is split about this? I like to have a naturalistic spellunking experience, but, I grumble about those naturalistic details since they mess things up and take time. If we go back for a second to DSG, I think that maybe the best way to do it is to describe the rooms sketchily and and let the dice and game mechanics do the work, instead of having the player tell me where they tap or seek. The muck and mud can be environmental "dungeon dressing" and maybe that will give it enough solidity to feel real, without too many rules to slow it down. Will I learn to love the caves? Who knows, but I do feel tempted to try to DM S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth which have been gathering dust on my shelf a while now. Nothing but caves. Anyone want to play AD&D?